My Calling Is Profiler [EN]: Chapter 671

“And he foolishly used only one phone.”

If he had used multiple phones, or even just two, the police probably wouldn’t have been able to execute this operation.

But they only used one phone, and for us, confirming that phone number wasn’t difficult.

“Well, it’s obvious after that.”

Once you know the phone number, it’s not hard to monitor it and find out the numbers it communicates with. And if they deliberately delay, he’ll naturally contact them, so that number would inevitably be the boss’s, Wang Woo-hwan’s.

“And Wang Woo-hwan would be waiting for his subordinate’s report.”

So, he wouldn’t turn off his phone, and they tracked that number to pinpoint his location and raid the site.

“What did the guys at the scene say?”

“Well, you know, the usual. They said they were from the Hellfire Clan.”

“That’s a joke.”

Of course, they prepared a decent lie. If it were another police officer, they probably would have fallen for it without much suspicion.

“But they don’t know much about the Hellfire Clan’s hierarchy, do they?”

“No.”

“How foolish.”

They probably educated them enough about the situation. Looking at Park Do-joon’s statement, it was so detailed that even he would have found it challenging.

Name?

From the start, the police don’t know the Hellfire Clan’s names. All the IDs and passports there were burned. And Wang Woo-hwan, of course, anticipated the names and had answers prepared for them.

“But the hierarchy is different.”

He might have made up the names, but Wang Woo-hwan made a mistake. He didn’t mention the hierarchy between each name. I don’t know if it was because he was short on time or didn’t think of it, but if they were really Hellfire Clan members, they couldn’t not know their hierarchy.

Hierarchy is the most important element in violent organizations.

But they don’t know the hierarchy? That’s impossible. They’d be dragged out and beaten like crazy that day.

It’s not even like the military where you have to memorize the hierarchy of an entire company; they don’t know the hierarchy of just ten people, or fifteen including the self-proclaimed Hellfire Clan? That doesn’t make sense.

Moreover, there are five guys who practically confessed. But those five have different stories about their hierarchy? That means the concept of hierarchy itself isn’t clear, and that means it’s all a lie.

“But what about Wang Woo-hwan?”

“He’s still not talking.”

“Well, I expected that, didn’t I?”

Even if Wang Woo-hwan goes to prison, it’ll only be about five years at most according to Korean standards. He’d rather safely spend that time in prison. Park Do-joon thought that was highly likely.

In fact, Wang Woo-hwan seemed to be choosing that.

“Would you like to try, Detective?”

“No. He won’t even try to talk to me. He’ll explicitly refuse.”

One thing criminals don’t know well is that they can change their investigating officer if they want. They actually can if they want, but the police don’t tell them in advance that they can change their investigating officer.

“Does he know Korean law that well?”

“Probably not. But Wang Woo-hwan is feeling a lot of pressure from me. So, as soon as I go in for questioning, he’ll demand a change of investigator to prevent any possible mistakes.”

If that’s possible, great, and even if it’s not possible, he can at least make it clear that he has nothing to say to this guy.

“If that happens, the police’s investigation will be dragged around by him.”

“Surely not?”

“Surely not? You should know by now. Realistically, look at how lightly the Chinese view the Korean judicial system.”

The Chinese judicial system is a mess. They can openly beat and torture people without any problems. In contrast, in Korea, even if you yell at them, a lawyer will come and throw a fit.

Of course, it’s not that the Chinese judicial system is good. The Chinese judicial system’s core isn’t uncovering crimes but creating criminals.

The problem is that when those guys who were under that judicial system come to Korea, they think there’s nothing easier to deal with than the Korean judicial system.

What about a profiler?

There’s no way he wouldn’t know what the other person is thinking and trying to manipulate him with, so he’ll obviously ignore it thoroughly.

“He knows better than anyone that confessing through persuasion will only increase his sentence, and yelling or anything like that is child’s play compared to China.”

We can’t hit him, we can’t yell at him, and we can’t deprive him of sleep.

“At best, all we can do is send him to prison based on the evidence we have now.”

The problem is that at best, it’s only five years, and that’s why he’s acting like this.

“Then is there a way?”

“Hmm….”

Park Do-joon pondered for a moment at those words and then said,

“Let’s talk with a lawyer present for now.”

“Yes?”

“Wang Woo-hwan is a smart guy. Even if he lost the battle of wits with me, it’s true that he’s much smarter than the average person. So, persuasion won’t work. But there’s something he doesn’t know.”

That’s the Korean judicial system.

Structurally, the Korean and Chinese systems are very different.

“Besides, the Korean interrogation methods are very different too. He’ll be quite wary of that.”

“Wary of the interrogation methods?”

“Yeah, the Korean police aren’t stupid, and they won’t just sit around without looking for other methods, will they?”

They can’t torture him, hit him, or deprive him of sleep, but that’s why they’ve developed other interrogation methods. And Wang Woo-hwan doesn’t know that.

“In China, there was no reason to develop other interrogation methods.”

There’s no need to develop new methods when they can beat them up, deprive them of sleep, or drag them to a secluded place and waterboard them without any problems.

Development must be based on ‘need’.

“And Wang Woo-hwan doesn’t know that.”

Of course, he might know it as information. But just knowing it as information doesn’t mean he can respond to it. For example, some smart scammers are repeat offenders with three or four convictions, and they know the interrogation process well because they’ve been interrogated each time, but they still get caught again more often than you’d think.

“So, he’ll try to think of other countermeasures.”

“Is that the lawyer?”

“If it’s an area I don’t know, it’s better to leave it to an expert.”

As a profiler, he’s even more certain about that.

“If a public defender is assigned, won’t we be able to interrogate him properly?”

“It’s not the interrogation that’s important, but if a public defender is assigned, he’s more likely to be careless. Then he won’t kick me out even if I go in.”

Belief in experts leads to carelessness. That’s why scammers claim to be experts. The word ‘expert’ or having a high level of education is the biggest reason why people think he’s less likely to fail.

But ironically, those professors or former police officers are often easy prey for scammers. Because they know so well, they believe, ‘There’s no way I’d get scammed?’

“Carelessness changes a lot of things.”

Park Do-joon chuckled and said.

Soon after, Wang Woo-hwan was assigned a lawyer. Officially, he was a foreigner with no money, so he was assigned a public defender. And Park Do-joon continued to observe him without interrogating him.

Wang Woo-hwan was a foreigner, so it didn’t matter if he spent some time in custody. After a week, Park Do-joon finally stepped in.

“Why are you stepping in now?”

Lee Ji-soo tilted her head as if she didn’t understand.

“I needed time to build trust.”

“With whom?”

“The lawyer, of course. A public defender isn’t someone the other party chose because they wanted them.”

Naturally, they’re not sure about the other party’s skills or willingness to work. Moreover, a smart guy like Wang Woo-hwan will be even more wary. He’ll suspect that the police sent him to deceive him, or that he’s incompetent.

“He wouldn’t be careless if he was with someone he couldn’t trust.”

But for a week, he did his best. That’s because Park Do-joon asked the lawyer to do so. To do his best.

Of course, no lawyer would nod his head and say that’s a good idea. From the lawyer’s perspective, the police are practically the enemy. But that actually stimulated the lawyer’s mind.

“I thought I was watching a comic book, seriously.”

The lawyer cut him off, saying that he would do his best even without those words. From his perspective, the words ‘do your best’ sounded like ‘try it if you can.’

Of course, Park Do-joon knew that and made that request.

“Thanks to that, he was ready to kill the other detectives.”

“I know. So, I feel sorry, but Wang Woo-hwan has to trust that lawyer to be careless.”

In fact, looking at the interrogations so far, Wang Woo-hwan was showing considerable trust in the lawyer.

“So, he’s likely to be relatively careless. And the lawyer’s response so far has been obvious.”

There’s no proper response for the lawyer at this point. Because the investigation hasn’t progressed, so there’s no information, and there hasn’t been any legal judgment.

What’s the most powerful weapon a lawyer can use in that case?

That’s right, a messenger, attacking the police. If the police make even a minor mistake, they’ll latch onto it and force the police to defend themselves, thereby blocking the timing of the attack.

Lawyers often provoke the police in that way. If the police get excited and make a mistake, it becomes grounds to argue in court that ‘the suspect was subjected to abuse.’

“Watching that, Wang Woo-hwan will gain trust.”

“But how are you going to get Wang Woo-hwan to talk?”

“I’m going to shake his position.”

“Yes?”

“This side is attacking, and that side is defending, right? But if this side is defending, Wang Woo-hwan will be confused.”

“Are you going to claim innocence?”

“Of course not.”

No matter how much Park Do-joon claims innocence, he can’t hide Wang Woo-hwan’s guilt. And Wang Woo-hwan won’t believe it either.

“But what he has to protect isn’t just himself. Hehehe.”

Park Do-joon slowly entered the interrogation room. And as expected, the lawyer was sitting to Wang Woo-hwan’s right.

“It’s been a while, Mr. Wang Woo-hwan.”

Wang Woo-hwan frowned when he saw Park Do-joon.

‘Well, it must be uncomfortable.’

He must know by now that he’s the one who caught him. He must know that Park Do-joon did everything, from the trap using the White Dragon Society’s name to the subsequent tracking, so he can’t help but feel uneasy.

People feel uncomfortable with those who see through their inner thoughts. Why did Cao Cao send Xun Yu an empty food box? [Cao Cao, a prominent figure in Chinese history, sent an empty food box to Xun Yu, a symbolic act indicating that Xun Yu was no longer needed or valued.]

He saw through Cao Cao’s inner thoughts, and Cao Cao was too uncomfortable with that. And Xun Yu even read the inner meaning of that empty food box and committed suicide.

What if a profiler, who has a job of reading others, has his inner thoughts read? Then it’s only natural to feel extremely uncomfortable.

A Profiler’s Providence